JMIR Publications

Background:

Bladder cancer has the highest incidence among urinary tract tumors. At present, the early clinical diagnosis of bladder cancer is receiving increasing attention. Ultrasound is currently one of the most meaningful methods for the early screening of bladder cancer.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of ultrasound and cystoscopy in the diagnosis and detection of bladder tumors, as well as the detection rate of tumors according to number, location, and size.

Methods:

We retrospectively analyzed 163 patients who underwent transurethral resection of bladder tumors in our hospital from June 2015 to December 2018. The postoperative pathologies of all patients were bladder urothelial tumors. All patients underwent bladder ultrasound and cystoscopy.

Results:

The rates of consistency with surgical findings for color Doppler ultrasound and cystoscopy in the diagnosis of single or multiple bladder tumors were identified, and the differences were not significant (single: P=.11; multiple: P=.72). For bladder tumors with a maximum diameter of 10 mm or more, there was no statistically significant difference in diagnostic consistency between color Doppler ultrasound and cystoscopy (10-20 mm: P=.58; >20 mm: P=.31). For bladder tumors with a maximum diameter of less than 10 mm, the rate of consistency with surgical findings for cystoscopy was 93% (38/41) and that for transabdominal color Doppler ultrasound was 71% (29/41), with a significant difference (P=.01).

Conclusions:

The sensitivity and specificity of color Doppler ultrasound for bladder tumors were lower than the sensitivity and specificity of cystoscopy. There was no relevant difference in the rate of consistency with surgical findings between color Doppler ultrasound and cystoscopy with regard to the diagnosis of single or multiple tumors. For tumors located at the bladder neck, the consistency rate of color Doppler ultrasound was better than that of cystoscopy.